Management Science – Analytics for Business Improvement

Tunnels, Funnels and Cascades - Increasing Market Penetration

The Funnel Idea

By: Frank Kowalkowski

How many times have you heard someone say thousands of people come to our website but few buy anything? Even in a store you here sellers say we get hundreds of people into our store each day but few buy anything and what they buy is not what we expect them to buy. In difficult economic times getting people to engage and eventually close on a sale or other service is the challenge that organizations face today whether on the web or in a traditional store.

This is not just marketing issue, it impacts IT, strategic management, business capabilities and other parts of an organization. You can be sure there is a lot of survey analysis, sales analysis, time of day purchasing, product and service preferences, advertising, customer observation and many other marketing and sales analysis approaches. A most useful one though is what is called funnel analysis also known as tunnel and cascade analysis.